Handmaids Tale - Conventional Relationships and Love Essay -- Margare

In todays society, a conventional relationship in the midst of a man and a woman is easily defined. It is one based on freedom of choice by both partners, equality of gender, and emotional attachment. It is grateful to say that in Atwoods novel, The Handmaids Tale, none of these be permitted. This book shows a society completely unlike our own, one that has been constructed on the antiquated Testament, where women are seen as biological vessels and are obsequious to men, and there is no place for romantic hunch over.The setting of The Handmaids Tale cognise as Gilead is a totalitarian government, origin every last(predicate)y based on Old Testament patriarchy. This structure forbids rival loyalties or parties, so all loyalty moldiness be for the group of men that govern the State. Such a structure means that women are assigned roles according to their biological usefulness.These roles are divided into six legitimate categories of Wives, Daughters, Aunts, Handmaids, Marthas a nd Econowives. Each category of women is required to perform their task properly, whilst obeying the notices set down for them by the patriarchal government. To illustrate, each group has different functions in the society, but still no one woman is able to act as an individual. The handmaids, for example, have been reduced to the ability to create another life, their fertility We are for breeding purposesThere is supposed to be nothing entertaining about us, no room is to be permitted for the flowering of secret lustsWe are two-legged wombs(pg.)With each rule that governs their lives comes a punishment for disobeying it. Though being unable to express any sort of individuality is difficult for the women of Gilead, the thought of being hung at a Salvaging or t... ...tMaybe he even likes it. We are not each others, anymore. Instead, I am his.(pg 191)This doubt is over taken by her love for him, as it should in all sturdy relationships. So when it comes to asking Luke about her tho ughts I was afraid to. I couldnt afford to lose you.(pg 192)Her need to be loved by him had taken over her idea that he enjoyed the power, she couldnt live with out his love.The ritual relationships of the regime leave the contenders feeling powerless and trapped within the rules of their roles. Despite this enforce role-playing true relationships still exist in secret since it is in the nature of the human condition to form emotional attachments and to love. In the end, Atwood makes it clear that it is our ability to love that makes us human and this cannot be denied. Works CitedAtwood, Margaret. The Handmaids Tale.